


Cash and Cars

by chaoticbeing



Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Pre-Canon, if i have to claw everyone into the fandom with my own bare hands i will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 13:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17529947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticbeing/pseuds/chaoticbeing
Summary: Doc gets a bag from his recent info-session and brings it into the meeting room. He knows it's something Baby would like. Somehow, it's something Baby has always liked, even if he hasn't held one in years.





	Cash and Cars

    There’s always an awful silence to the meeting room after everyone else has left. Baby is used to this silence as he waits for his personal cut, fingers drumming on the table, “It’s My Life” trying to drown out the hum of air conditioners and the ringing in his ears.

    Sometimes, Doc would let him meet him in the parking lot, and they would exchange quick snips before he would send Baby off.

    Baby didn’t exactly know why there were days like that and days like these. Nothing was different about these two situations ever happened. Either way, inside or outside, Baby would get his cut and the burner of the week, and be sent off.

    However, everything Doc did seemed to be planned. Baby knew better than to question that, and he knew better than to even ask.

    His fingers went from tapping to curling into his palm. This was the longest Doc had ever taken to leave and come back. His worn-down iPod of the day had gone to the next song by now. “Personal Jesus” didn’t seem to help sooth either.

Whoever had this one last seemed to enjoy 80s rock music.

    Baby unclenched his hand and ran it to his jacket pocket. Pulling out the music player, he felt over each scratch and imperfection in the plastic. His eyes on the door, he felt out the perfect loop of where the play button was, where the skip button was, round and round until he reached the skip button again.

    It was a perfect circle.

    The printing of the symbols at this point was faded beyond vague recognition. But this never stopped Baby, this never messed him up. He knew which direction was skip, which was reverse, and even anyone who wasn’t him would know which button played. It was the perfect pattern, copied from iPod to iPod, no matter what size. 

    Baby had played them for so long that every detail was memorised.

    Third song, and Baby swore that Doc must’ve forgotten about him. The air in the empty room felt heavy. He wasn’t used to the lack of Doc’s voice booming through, wasn’t used to not having to read every lip like it was a soap opera of questions and quips and answers.

    Then he heard movement.

    Perking up, looking over his shades, Baby waited for whoever was going to enter the room to come in already. Although logics said ‘Doc’, the part of him convinced that due to it happening before, Doc had left him to figure things out himself.

    Maybe it was someone else who had forgotten something in this clean room.

    But it was Doc. Doc came in with a wad of cash in one hand and a bag the size of his head in the other. He strided over and situated himself in a seat across from Baby.

    After all this waiting, Baby had been expecting the wait from door to table to be much longer. It wasn’t, though. It happened so quick that the noise of the door slamming and the noise of the chair being pulled in blended together in the same shock.

    Doc pushed over the wad of cash first. He knew what he owed Baby, this was his tip. Tips were important in order to keep good service.

    “Last info-trip, my Rat was able to get into a deal that went very bad.” Doc spoke and Baby read. Doc set the bag on the table for emphasis.

    “I figured, if anyone were to want this shit, it’d be you.”

    The bag dropped and out rolled a couple toy cars. Baby watched with minute horror and massive curiosity as the car kept its momentum and stopped only because it hit his hand. Looking down at the car for only a second, Baby noted the black and white paint job before his eyes went back to Doc.

    So. There were toy cars in there. Not just one, because that bag looked like it was heavier than just a handful of Hot wheels.

    Baby coaxed the bag over to him, careful not to let the rest of the toys fall out and cause a mess of rolling wheels and plastic shells. What the fuck? Did they rob a children’s home?

    Hesitantly reaching into the bag, he felt more and more cars and his hand went deeper. This was insane.

    Looking at Doc, Baby made a face that would let him know exactly what he was thinking. 

    This. Was. Insane.

    “Don’t think we stole candy from a baby, Baby.” Doc kept his voice steady and his words persise. He had always done this, but every time that he did, Baby felt internally grateful.

    Baby also felt at the same moment uncomfortability that Doc knew exactly what he was thinking.

    “He collected these.” Doc reached over to the black and white car, pulled it over, and started rolling it across the table with his finger. Baby wasn’t expecting him to do that, but the moment he processed that Doc had just snatched a toy from him, Doc had done it.

    “There was a whole room of these. He said he had information worth a certain amount of cash, and boy, he was wrong.”

    Cash was important to Doc. Baby would be willing to bet that the whole reason Doc is found by all the people who end up doing heists for him is because they know that they can get money from him. If you took away his money, Doc could still be a powerful person from rock bottom, but he’d still be at rock bottom with no one to control.

    Baby looked over at the wad of cash because of the comment. He had yet to pull it closer to him, and at this point, Doc probably wanted him to. He slid it next to the bag of cars. 

    Cash and Cars, that’s what this story was about.

    “So, I went into his collection and got enough of his toys to make up the difference between his worthless information and what he promised.”

    That made well enough sense. Baby grabbed into the bag and pulled out a handful of the toys, setting them on the meeting table. He watched them roll around before seeing that Doc had released the car he had been playing with and pushed it over to join the others.

    He couldn’t help himself as he started to vroom them around with his fingers, flicking some, getting carried away to the point that he forgot Doc was watching him.

    Baby was almost certain that his boss had said something while Baby was looking down, because most people forget that saying stuff while Baby wasn’t looking makes them unreachable. It was easy to mute them that way.

    When he looked back up, Doc was watching him with a keen eye. Something in him flushed at the idea of being seen as a child in front of his boss, but then again, his name was literally Baby. 

    “I thought you’d enjoy them.”

    His expression read the same as it had been through this entire monologue. He was stating facts, and Baby knew it. A job had gone wrong, these cars were from a cheapo that couldn’t pay up, and Baby would enjoy them.

    “I expect you to keep them here, though. You’re not stupid enough to try to take them home, are you Baby?”

    Baby shakes his head. Getting the money home was difficult enough to explain, but coming home with a bag of toy cars? Joe wouldn’t be able to handle it. Baby wasn’t that stupid.

    “Good.” 

    Doc reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out another burner. He sets it beside the wad of cash and leaves without saying a word.

    Baby went back to the cars, feeling out the shape of the cases while watching Doc leave.

    Baby had played with them for so long that every detail was memorised.


End file.
